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I was thinking about my first/original D&D campaign the other day and then remember this magic item that I did way back when. So I figured what they heck share it. And I realized that this fun (for me any way) little can be easily used no matter what flavor D&D you like.
So here you go.The Sword of Champions appears and basically functions as a normal +2 Dancing Long Sword. But like any cool magic item, there’s a catch. If an opponent incapacitates the wielder then the Sword of Champions switches sides. Because if somebody beats you then you ain’t the Champion. If the wielder is killed then that character cannot be raised because the Sword of Champions consumes his life force. The Sword creates a pool of Hit Points equal to the dead wielder’s maximum HP which can be used to heal the new wielder. When found the Sword of Champions will have a pool of 3d6 HP.
So short and sweet and a little nostalgic memory from my high school days.
Remember kids. Roll dice. Kill Monsters. Take their stuff. And have fun!

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Well, time to catch up on our weary band of travelers in DCC campaign. When we last left our heroes, they had just rescued a young girl with the Gift of Second Sight and were teleported to an unknown location (The Tower of the Mad Mage). Now this idea is sort of backwards adventure. Usually, the characters would break into a place like this but in this case they are breaking out. Each level/room of this dungeon is the same a 50 in diameter circle. Most of it was pretty common type monsters with nothing really super special about them so I won’t bore you with that. So here’s only the good parts.

This place warps magic.
Every time a character casts an arcane spell while inside the tower, roll a d8.
1. Make a Will Save with a DC of the Spell Check. On a fail (of the Save), the spell goes off normally but also roll as if the spell misfired.
2. Make a Fort Save with a DC of the Spell Check. On a fail (of the Save), the spell goes off normally but also roll on the Minor Corruption Table.
3. The character must take 1d3 Spell Burn in order to cast the spell.
4. Add a random (no Luck modification) Mercurial Magic Effect for this casting.
5 to 8. Nothing special. Just cast as normal.

Giant Lamprey Slugs These things gave the party a run for their money.
Init: +0; Atk: +1; Damage: 1d3+Attach; Action Die: d20; AC: 11; HP: 5; Move: 25; Saves; Fort +4, Reflex: -1; Will: +0; Special: Attach: When a Giant Lamprey Slug successfully attacks a target it attaches itself to the target and does 1 HP damage each round after that as it drains the blood from its victim. Yeah sort of stirge like but three-foot long slugs with nasty mouths.
While this may not seem like it would have been a memorable encounter, there is a character with a magic sword that has a chance of turning something he kills into a zombie. This happened multiple times with the slugs. Chop the head off. It stays attached but still sucks blood and the character turned into a blood fountain.

After all the other encounters, Stone Golems, the Wizard’s Ghost, and a trapped apprentice followed by a little looting. The party heads back to town and some down time. Sometimes you have to think of playing DCC is like being in a horror movie. Don’t ever go into the woods by yourself. Even if it’s just to hunt rabbits. ‘Cause like the rabbits could kill you. Yeah, a quick random off-the-top-of-my-head encounter just because.
The characters turn over the girl and spend some time in town. There was Patron Bonding and Carousing with lead to PC’s getting robbed, burning down an inn, getting jailed, and quickly leaving town and heading to their next quest at Demon Crown Hill….

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This last week the party of adventurers finished up The Lair of Lennok. Here’s what went down.The Alchemy Lab: No monsters here but the PC’s got to play around with some potions. For loot, there was 500 GP worth of alchemical materials (See Make Potion in your DCC rule book) plus a spell book containing Make Potion. Additionally, there was a”portable” alchemy lab. By portable, I mean a large trunk that required two character to carry. Additionally, there were some curve ball potions that they messed with. Here are the fun ones:
The Little Blue Potion: Yep basically Viagra.
One Shot: One shot and you’re drunk.
Up All Night: The character stays awake and alert all night but gains no benefit from “rest”.
Sort of Invisibility: Drink it and you’re invisible but you’re also blind at the same time.
Stunt Flying: Like a potion a Flying but the drinker flies in a random direction each round.
Invisible Potion: What is says. The potion is invisible. That’s it.
Meteor Shit: Ever see Creep Show? Yep. Make DC: 14 Fort Save on a fail make DC:12 Fort Save each day or lose a point of Stamina and Agility.
Corruption: Make a Stamina Check: On a 20+ gain Minor Corruption. 11 to 19: Major Corruption. 10 or less: Greater Corruption.
Chaos Blender: Make a Fort Save until successful. The DC’s in order: 16/14/12/10/8/6. For each failure re-roll a random ability score and take the new number.
I also threw in some common things just to see what the PC’s would do. They included water, oil, vinegar, soy sauce, soap, and pee.

The Summoning Chamber: A large room with a summoning circle in the middle, a book stand with a large magical tome, and a woman chained to the opposite wall.
The Tome: Contains Demon Summoning spell.
The Circle: Contains the Chitinous Toad Demon with a Snake Tongue. The toad demon is invisible and any character breaking the circle causes it to appear and attack.
The Toad Demon: Init +0; ATK: +6; Damage: Snake Tongue (Reach 10′) 1d3+make DC: 10 Fort Save or be paralyzed for 1d4 rounds. Bite: 1d6; AC: 12; HP: 36; Saves: +3 for all; Move: 35; Special: Invisible, Snake Tongue, Swallow Whole on a crit, Demon Traits.
The Woman: She’s really a succubus. She’ll maintain her disguise and play a victim to get the PC’s sympathies. She’ll maintain this disguise until the PC’s don’t fall for it or she comes face to face with Lennok. Then her rage and hatred of the mortal wizard who bound her causes her disguise to drop. She cannot attack Lennok directly as a side effect of her summoning/binding but she can help or encourage the characters in other ways.
Lizza the Succubus: Init: +3, Atk: +5 Damage: by weapon or Claws -: 1d6+1; AC: 14, HP: 28, Saves: All at +4; Move 30/40 (flying); Special: Disguise Self, Charm, Demon Traits.

The Inner Sanctum:Lennok’s Chamber: Richly furnished apartment. No monsters here but loot. Some spell scrolls (which were randomly generated thanks to the Purple Sorcerer site), miscellaneous swag worth 750 GP, and some really good food and wine.Lennok’s Wizardly Chamber: And here’s the Boss Fight. We have the girl who was the subject of the quest tied to an operating table. I just generated a 0-Level character which I at the end of the fight I handed the questing player. “Here you go. You found the girl. You just need to keep her alive.”
Lennok: Once again thanks to Purple Sorcerer. Just generated a 6th Level Magic-User.
The Demon Golem Guardian: A Stitched together flesh golem with many demon parts. Init: +0; ATK: +7; Damage: 2d5; AC: 13; HP: 48; Saves: Fort: +6′ Ref: +0, Will: +2;Move: 30; Special: Demon Traits, Golem Traits.
Loot from the fight: Lennok’s spell book.
Also in the room is a magical portal. Press various crystals round its edge and portal opens to somewhere. As soon as Lennok dies, Lizza the Succubus goes to the portal, activates, and goes through. If the PC’s don’t pause to think, “What would be the first place a freed demon would go?” and follow her through the portal. Then congrats. The party just walked into Hell. Nope, my players didn’t fall for that one. The portal now becomes pretty much a plot device. Let the PC’s play with and make some sort decision to go thru and leads to the next adventure/dungeon. Remember, they have a 0-Level kid they have to keep alive.
As a final rant about this adventure, the final fight was more dramatic and exciting both for me and the players than I thought it would be. Between Choking Cloud and Ray of Enfeeblement, Lennok managed to take out everyone in the party except for the Elf and the Thief. The Thief used the Choking Cloud as cover, downed a potion of Invisibility and moved into position for a Sneak Attack. The Elf charged Lennok and used the nasty power of the magic sword they had found previously. As a refresher, the wielder may turn a normal hit into a critical hit but it costs one point of Personality and 1d3 HP (both permanent losses). This simulates the sword consuming the soul and life force of the wielder. The one-two punch of those two characters took out the Wizard quickly. There were many cheers around the table.

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So I’m running my Dungeon Crawl Classics thru a little home brew dungeon. I figured the fun way to post about is in a simple serialized form. So as the party gets thru various parts, I’ll rant about it. It’s part session summary, part adventure write up. And sure I’m running with DCC but I know you’re smart and easily changed it over to whatever system happens to be your flavor of the day. And when this is all done, I’ll scan the map including my hand scribbled notes.The Quest/Hook: One of the PC’s decided they wanted to get Patron Bond for a specific patron (Hecate from Angels, Demons & Beings in Between) Well. Sounds like a quest to me. The character goes on a week long vision quest and learns that they need to go to The Big City and find the person to teach the character the spell (which they do). The NPC agrees but there’s a catch. A child with the gift of Second Sight was born in remote village and someone has kidnapped the child. The party’s quest. Find the child and return her to the mentor (not the child’s parents). They agree and it’s off to the village and a little detective work. They finally track down where they need to go. A mysterious ring of stones deep in the swamp.Getting into the Damned Place: Never said this was going to be easy. The only things within the ring of stones are two statues which animate into living beings as soon as the characters enter the ring. One is a dark robed figure. And the other a lithe elfin maid. The robed figure is the Guardian of Fate. The maid, the Guardian of Free Will. This turns in a roleplaying puzzle.
First, the guardians do not acknowledge the other’s existence. Such as Free Will saying, “Fate doesn’t exist.” Or Fate saying, “Free Will is an illusion.” Let the banter begin. Finally, the player characters will ask a question that will put them on the path to the solution. More than likely, “How do we find the girl?” or “How do we get into the dungeon?” or something like that. Free Will will answer with something like “You have to choose to find the gir.” Fate would say, “You have to accept your Fate.” Get it? To open the portal to the dungeon, each character must choose Fate or Free Will. For DCC here’s the side effects for making the choice. For Fate, the character’s Luck is increased by one and one random ability score is reduced by one. For Free Will, the character permanently loses one point of Luck but gains a point in any other ability score of their choosing.Into the Hallway of Death: For most old school players, this shouldn’t be too much. But some of my players aren’t used to it so things got pretty tough for them.
Trap 1: Your standard pressure plate triggered flame jets. (DC: 12 REF Save or take 1d6 and be on fire!)
Trap 2: Pit Trap with illusionary floor: This was immediately after the Flame Jets. (Falling in causes 1d6 spikes to pierce that character each doing 1d4 damage) Plus any fools who are fire who happen to run forward….
Trap 3: At the end of the hall, standard poisoned arrow trap. (+3 To hit, Damage: 1d6+ DC: 10 Fort Save or be at -1 to all rolls for 2d6 hours.The First Room: Or I should say guard room. Guardian Golem: Init: +1; Attack: +3 for d8 Damage; AC: 15; HP: 24; +2 All Saves; Special: Immune to Charm, 1/2 damage from non-magical attacks. Laser Idols (guarding the only other exit): +0 To Hit and does 2d3 damage when any one approaches within 5 feet of them. The only way to disarm them, it take out their ruby eyes (each worth 50 GP).The Necromancy Lab: Wander further into the dungeon and they what is obviously a Necromancy Lab. Important Safety Tip: When you find three sealed coffins. Open no more than one at a time. Opening more could cause a TPK which nearly happened.
Coffin 1: The Elf Wight: Init +2, Attack: +3 doing d8+1 Damage; AC: 15; HP 18; Saves: R +4, F+3, W +4; Special: Undead Traits. Loot: Shield, Suit of Elvin Chainmail, The Necro Blade: When the wielder kills a living being with the sword roll 2d6 and heal that much unless doubles are rolled then the aforementioned living being is turned into zombie (not under anybody’s control). When the wielder successfully attacks an opponent, he may opt to turn a normal hit into a Critical Hit. The only cost is to permanently lose 1d3 HP and one point of Personality as the sword consumes the life force and soul of the wielder.
Coffin 2: Banshee: Init +3, Atk: +2 1d3 Stamina Drain; AC: 12, HP: 14, Saves: W +6, F +3, R +4, Special: Fly at 40′, Undead Traits, Cause Fear: DC: 12 Will Save or flee in terror for 1d6 rounds and make another DC: 10 Will save to keep from dropping whatever the character has in hand. On a roll of a Natural 1 on the first save make a DC: 10 Fort Save or die from fear. If successful then character still has some sort physical effect. Yes, this did happen and we know have an elf with white hair. Loot: Necklace (150 GP), Cursed Ring (I haven’t quite decided on the curse yet..)
Coffin 3: Bag of Skulls: 12 Skulls each with the following stats: Init: +2, Attack: +1 for 1d3 damage, AC 11, HP: 3, Saves: R +2, F +1, W +1; Special: Undead Traits, Fly at 30′. Sorry no loot here unless you count a large sack.
Note: The PC’s opened coffins 1 and 2 at the same time after having an easy time dealing with the Bag of Skulls.
And that’s as far as they got.
Till Next Time. Kill Monsters, Take their stuff, and HAVE FUN!

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So if you don’t play Dungeon Crawl Classics, the thing about halflings is that they are little luck batteries with ability to help out the other party members. Then the idea of a lucky rabbits foot crossed my mind. And oh there we go. I thought about this and thought about having a little encounter against some orcs just to keep the players on their toes. Orc’s would just the types to mummify some poor halfling’s foot and wear it. And it was kind fortunate because the players weren’t on their toes.
The Lucky Halfling’s Foot is just that. The mummified foot of a halfling. I know. Ewww! That’s the idea. But is does grant an extra point of Fleeting Luck once per session. So you’re not playing DCC? That’s cool. For a quick and dirty conversion, grants a +1 bonus to any one roll once per session. (Yes, I know Fleeting Luck does do more but it’s a quick, easy and pretty clone neutral conversion.) Of course, there may some awkward social moments if a character is wearing this thing.
Now about those players not being on their toes.
“Do we think the road to the big city is safe?”
“Uh, maybe.”
“We go to the big city!”
“You’re not going to buy any better weapons or armor in the village?”
“Nope.”
“Okay.”
So yeah. A plain mob of orcs try to ambush them. Being DCC the fight was less than a round. That’s what happens when a magic-user type rolls really well. Needless to say all the orcs got wiped out. But still being DCC that extra damage also meant larger area of effect. So also everybody (except the aforementioned arcane caster who only had a few HP left) drops. Which was the only way they avoided TPKing themselves. Like I mentioned before the one player’s character is a Witch from Tales of the Fallen Empire. So she’s the party’s arcane artillery and their healer.
Keep those dice a rolling!

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The Dungeon Crawl Classics game is steaming ahead and it’s time to meet the band and hear about some of their misadventures. The last session, we were missing two players so more on their characters later but here’s the roll call for the one’s who braved Madazkan’s Court (Sunken City)!Bill The Fighter who probably isn’t going to have a long life considering he has 2 HP and a crappy Luck score.Jade/Jace The Witch (from Tales of the Fallen Empire. First on the whole Jade/Jace thing. For Mercurial Magic for Flaming Hands, Gender Bender was rolled. Look it up. Now I did do a couple of tweaks on the class. First, The Witch gets a Lay On Hands ability very similar to a Cleric’s. But it’s based on the phases of the moon. I’m lazy and really didn’t want to keep track of that. Also, I really enjoy embracing some of the crazy randomness of DCC. So the Lay On Hands table has 5 columns. Good. Roll 1d5 each time it’s attempted. The column may shift based on any powerful ambient magic in the area for good or ill. Also, the class has an ability called Temptress. Add your Personality Modifier to any social checks. Uh, I’d do that any way so it’s not much of a class ability. So what the heck. Add Level.Kinder The Halfling (Don’t blame me. Let the player name their character how ever) and probably one the unluckiest Halflings around.Nelson the Clumsy Elf. The one elf in the world, you don’t want to hand a bow to.
I won’t go into a long blow by blow rant on the session, only the good parts. And yes before you say anything, I ignored some rules here and there. But it was all for the fun of it.
Let’s start with poor Nelson who needs to get some armor so his AC gets up to 10.
“I don’t want to get near the monster. Can I use my 10 foot pole as a weapon sort of like a spear.”
“Sure why not? It’s blunt so it does 1d3.”
“Cool. I crit.” And every encounter after that Nelson crit’ed at least once with his 10 foot pole.
Now on to Kinder the Halfling. The party just made 1st level. They haven’t had a chance to go to town to buy any gear. The only pair of weapons they had were a couple of Long Swords. I don’t care that the swords are as long as the Halfling is tall. Just the visual of the psychotic little Cuisinart made me chuckle. So what the heck. After Bill the Fighter spends most of his time unconscious.
Now for the highlight of the session. And yes SPOILERS AHEAD. STOP READING NOW. YOU’VE BEEN WARNED.
It’s the final encounter in Madazkan’s Court. It’s more a trap than a monster. But somehow, the party got it into their heads that it was more of a monster. They kept attacking and throwing spells at the statue for absolutely no effect. Jade The Witch gets desperate and realizes with a good enough roll Charm Person could work on a “monster”. And the DCC Dice Gods said, “Nope! Spell Misfire!” The result. Caster falls in love with the target of the spell. Add into this the player rolled well on Mercurial Magic. First, everyone within 10 feet gets a little healing. It kept Bill alive. Second, all looking at the caster must make a Will Save or be entranced by the caster for 1d3 rounds. The only one to make that save was poor Bill who was being pulled into the maw of the statue. So while the Witch was putting her moves onto Malloc, Nelson the Elf and Kinder the Halfling watched. Yeah, there were a lot of jokes…

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I ain’t no scholar. I ain’t no academic. I’m not that smart or good looking. I’m just a guy who wants to roll dice and have some fun. This is my little blog featuring lots of old school RPG stuff and other RPG rants. Remember the cardinal rules. The rules are guidelines. Keep it simple. Roll dice, Kill monsters. Take their stuff. And have fun!

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Mise En Place is cooking term. Basically, doing all your preparation beforehand. And that's what I rant about this episode. Getting ready to run Advanced Labyrinth Lord and all the things I'm trying to get ready.

I rant about my "system neutral" DM Notebook and how it's important and it's important to clean the thing out every once in a while. Also, continue with the reading from the Little Brown Books. This time up: 1st Level Magic-User spells.